


Delicato

by CloudySonder



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Professors, Angst, Child Abuse, Classical Music, Duet, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Musical References, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-02-10 04:16:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21474727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudySonder/pseuds/CloudySonder
Summary: Logan Sanders, a Music Theory professor, has been dubbed the "Human Metronome." Students complain about his devotion to following the sheet music, but none can argue with his prodigal talent with the piano. A conductor who conducts as steadily as a machine, cold and calculating, who only accepted "textbook perfect".Then why was it, Logan wondered, that he loved the sound of Patton's violin more than anything in the world?The sound of whimsy and the joy of making music caught his ears at the first note, and soon, his heart would be next.____In which Logan Sanders is a Music Theory professor and a pianist, and Patton Bailey is a Composition I professor and violinist down the hall.Also in which Logan learns to trust, and Patton learns to stay.
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders/Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders, Logic | Logan Sanders/Morality | Patton Sanders, Logicality
Comments: 106
Kudos: 142





	1. Giocoso

“No, no, no. Stop.” Logan dropped his conducting hands and sighed. The music (if one could even call it that) ceased abruptly for the most part, while one particularly ambitious snare drum continued playing for a few seconds onward, bringing a confused trombone and a zoned-out clarinet with it.

Logan cleared his throat.

A hundred eyes peered at Logan inquisitively. It infuriated him to no end; had they not known what they did wrong? Were they truly that ignorant?

The flutes had pianissimo instead of mezzo forte.

The trombones and tubas had no diminuendos or crescendos.

The clarinets had the wrong notes.

The snares and the rest of the percussion section had zoned out.

Logan had a headache.

“Clarinets, please play your tuning note.” His voice was a dull, focused monotone, as per usual, but his eyes held such poorly concealed frustration that the clarinet section took a second to shake off their shock before obeying.

A cacophony of different pitches rang through the room, a shrill shriek of poor harmonies. 

“Who was in charge of the tuning exercises for the clarinets?” Logan rounded on the section.

“Me, sir.” A girl in a black skirt stood up. “My name is Clara, my friends thought it’d be perfect if I led the clarinets because my name kinda--”

“Clara.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Did I ask?” Logan’s response shocked the girl into silence. “Do you know how to tune a clarinet?”

“Yes.”

“Falsehood. Please explain why I heard the screams of mythical banshees instead of clarinets.”

“I, I mean, I, I thought the piece sounded more solemn, more emotional when it was tuned in--”

“Incorrect.” Logan tapped his conducting baton on his music stand. “You are free to play the piece however you like--”

“Thank-”

“--I wasn’t finished-- in your own time. Do you claim to know better than a composer that earned the admiration of thousands in his time?”

“No, sir, I just--”–

“Then follow the music.” The frustration was beginning to tinge his tone, and Logan hated it. “Play crescendo when it says crescendo, bass section. Play the right dynamic, flutes. Play what is on the page. Nothing more. You joined this orchestra to play, so  _ play. _ ”

Logan narrowed his eyes. “Anyone who disagrees is free to seek a different band.”

Cold silence swept through the room. Clara slowly sat back down.

“Good. Now let’s--” Logan had raised his hands to conduct again, when Clara stood once more, wearing her teary eyes and lightly sniffling with stubborn pride.

“I don’t agree, sir.” She pursed her lips, nodded determinedly, and marched, ramrod straight, out of the room. Hushed whispers blanketed the clarinet section after a moment of shock, and the other sections soon joined in.

Logan watched, more than a little exasperated, as three more clarinets, less determined but still decisive nonetheless, stood and left without a word.

Five more followed them, and before five minutes had passed, the band’s clarinet section was empty. Logan watched them go with numb disinterest.

A single trombone stood up from the back.

“If you’re going to join them, feel free. There’s no need to flaunt your cowardice with so much bravado.” Logan stared at the trombone, an eyebrow raised.

“No, I’m not leaving. I...I just...I mean… is practice cancelled...or…?”

“No, it most certainly is not.” Logan straightened his tie. “Now that the obstructions have left, let’s work on improving the individual sections. Before we start, the tuba in seat B23 needs to push their slide in about 3 millimeters; your C was off.”

\---

“The Human Metronome.”

Logan often didn’t appreciate the tone it was used in conjunction with, but the nickname itself… it wasn’t bad. It was true that he preferred to play pieces perfectly as the composer had written them; the writing itself was the art in the music, and he was simply a translator. 

He set the metronome to an allegro of 120 bpm and played a warmup on the piano to concentrate.

The orchestra was a disaster; no wonder they had called him in to fix them. They had asked for someone focused and clear, and Logan fit the bill perfectly. 

The clarinets… 

He felt his left pinky twitch, and it ruined what would’ve been a textbook legato. 

Well, he’d deal with that later. He added it to his list, which was turning nauseously long.

His warmup was faultless, and he would finish it conventionally perfectly. Yes, yes, now just the final triplets, and he would be–

The first notes of a violin stopped his playing.

It was the first notes of Saint Saen’s Rondo Capriccioso, a song that he had listened to countless times before. But somehow… the first notes themselves were so powerful in the solemnity that it shook the musical machine’s heart to its core.

It was the Capriccioso, but it wasn’t. The dynamics were slightly off, the tempo changed randomly, and by all accounts, he should’ve hated it immensely, but… 

Logan leaned into the sound.

It was wrong in all the right places. It could have been named a new piece, if not for the occasional burst of the original melody and dynamics. It was music that rebelled against him, music that sang to the heart, perhaps even to one’s morality.

Whimsy. Yes. That was the word. It was the most whimsical music he’d ever heard, and usually, he’d think it careless, but it held so much more conviction than he thought possible.

The piece finished, and Logan felt the strange urge to clap, for the very first time in his life.

“Patton!” A voice called from down the hall.

“Yeah?” 

The violinist’s voice (Patton, was it?) embodied a sort of cheerfulness Logan had never heard in his life. 

Giocoso. He had hated that dynamic before. Cheerful? Playful? It was too vague, and Logan knew that cheerfulness and playfulness couldn’t be universally communicated through a single sound.

He was wrong.

His long list didn’t seem so nauseating anymore.

“You done yet? We want to head to the bar now!”

“Almost, guys! I just need to tune a little bit. I think my E is off.”

“C’mon…” The unnamed voice whined. “Nobody’ll notice, I swear.”

They were wrong. Logan noticed. And it wasn’t the E string, it was the A string.

“You can leave without me, guys! I have some papers to grade anyway.” 

Papers to grade. Papers to grade…? Patton. Papers to grade. 

A professor by the name of Patton with papers to grade.

Wasn’t the name of the Composition professor Patton?

Hm. Interesting.

He heard a frustrated sigh from Patton across the hall, in between trying to test notes on his violin.

That’s what would happen if you tried to tune the E string when the A string is wrong. Logan shook his head.

Logan heard his violin case click, and Patton’s footsteps down the hallway,  _ his classroom’s hallway _ , confirmed that, yes, it was the Composition professor.

He glanced towards the violin.

Well, couldn’t hurt. He needed the tuning practice.

_


	2. Allegro

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patton is happy. He swears he is.

“Hey, Patton?” A professor by the name of Michael tapped him on the shoulder. 

“Hey!” Patton beamed. “We’re gonna go rehearse today, right? I’ve been polishing my violin part for the song, and I think I’ve got it down pat-ton!” He laughed at his own joke.

“Yeah, hehe. Yeah, about that…” Michael rubbed the back of his neck. “We’re gonna have to do a raincheck on that, buddy.”

“..oh.” Patton swallowed down his disappointment. “That’s fine! Totally fine! You’re probably way ahead of me in the piece anyway, you’re so talented, so I can just use this time to, yunno, catch up!”

“Right.” Michael nodded. “Just one practice, right? Can’t hurt. Actually, my, uh, my mom’s in the hospital, so, I… yeah.”

“Oh no.” Patton’s glazed over with pity, and Michael visibly flinched. “That’s terrible. If you don’t mind me asking, what happened?”

“She tripped, yeah, she tripped down a flight of stairs.” Michael haltingly replied, and Patton’s instincts went off like warning bells in his head.

But Michael wouldn’t lie to him, would he? Patton had heard a recording of his piano-playing before; it was stunningly beautiful, the textbook perfection of the piece a constant reminder of what Patton’s playing could never be. 

Michael, Patton thought, was extraordinarily talented, and exhibited flawlessness in his playing that could only be achieved by earnest work. He wouldn’t lie.

He wouldn’t.

“It’s just one practice!” Patton smiled anyway. “It’ll be fine, I’m sure!”

“Yeah,” Michael replied, and Patton saw his figure slump with relief. Relief. His mother was in the hospital. It wasn’t gratitude that Patton had let him off, but  _ relief,  _ almost as if he had escaped something. “One practice. It’s fine.”

Patton noticed that there was no promise to make it next time. 

But Michael wouldn’t lie. Someone with such earnest music  _ couldn’t lie.  _ Yes, sure, Michael had never come to rehearsal before, and Patton had never really seen him play before, but he had heard him, in the recording.

Even if Michael did lie, Patton was sure he had good reason to. Maybe he realized that Patton’s violin playing was horrid. Maybe he realized he was too good to be playing a duet with Patton. Maybe he didn’t hate rehearsal, he just hated Patton.

Who was he to doubt him like this? His violin skills were subpar at best, and Michael’s playing was pristine. Maybe Patton was the villain.

“Oh, and one more thing?” Michael turned around to face Patton while walking away, snapping Patton out of his momentary stupor. “Patty, buddy. Could you, uh, and this is really hard to ask, could you grade my assignments for my class tomorrow? The boss wants the grades pronto, but you know, with my mom in the hospital and all, it’ll be really hard…”

Michael looked at Patton pitifully.

“Sure. It’s no problemo. Patty’s got your back!”

Maybe Patton was the villain. 

But at least, if he can help, even a little bit…

__

This was terrible. He should have never agreed to this. He didn’t get the test questions in the slightest; he was rubbish at math, and the word problems kept swirling in circles in his head.

Michael didn’t give him an answer key, either. A little part of him, the dark distrustful Patton he didn’t like told him to look up the word problems online, and the test would probably come up with the answer key and match exactly, word for word, number for number.

He didn’t listen to that part. He had an inkling that if it were true, it would seem like his doubts in Michael weren’t so unfounded at all. He didn’t want to find out. 

He didn’t want to suspect Michael for taking his exams off the internet, didn’t want to suspect that he lied about his mother, or that he lied any of the times before when he skipped rehearsal.

He had to stay as the happy, peppy, Patton that everyone knew and loved. He had to. 

If he lost that, what would he have left?

Subpar violin-playing?

Average intelligence?

Forced to come to terms with the fact that he wasn’t particularly talented at anything?

He was scared.

He couldn’t afford to be cynical unless he traded the one thing he had in return. 

Patton read the math problem for what seemed to be the trillionth time, but he felt the startings of a wave of panic crawl up his back as the numbers flickered across his eyes. 

A fresh mind. Yes. All he needed was a fresh mind. Maybe a cola, maybe a bag of chips, maybe even just the walk.

He just needed to leave.

A professor who couldn’t grade papers. What a joke. Patton tried to swallow, but his throat had suddenly gone dry. The walls of the hallways passed him in vague blurs, and Patton felt as though he wasn’t walking, but simply floating. 

Hallway walls sped by him in blobs of yellowed, opaque, white paint, and Patton felt nauseous to his core.

His breathing sped up. 

How pathetic he was. A professor who couldn’t do his goddamn job, couldn’t do one little thing that was asked of him, who was cynical and cruel, who, he was sure, just  _ pretended  _ to be nice-- What a joke. 

He was the start of a bad joke, wasn’t he? A privileged kid who grew up in the suburbs walks into an orchestra performance  _ once _ , and he decided to go into music! Into  _ music!  _ Really ditched everything and went for it, didn’t you, Patton?

And you failed. 

Couldn’t read dynamics for shit, couldn’t play  _ right _ , ended up becoming a professor instead of a performer, and when you did try to perform… 

Even your partner realized you’re a failure. 

The thoughts spurred the wave on, and Patton was such a failure, who couldn’t do anything right, and he just couldn’t, couldn’t, couldn’t,  _ couldn’t-- _

He clutched the cold walls behind him for comfort and kept staggering forward, his breaths echoing in his ears, tears flowing freely down his face, reminding him of what a  _ failure  _ he was. 

His heartbeat was in an allegro staccato, but it rang unevenly and every beat struck him, a grossly  _ wrong  _ type of music. That, at least, seemed familiar to Patton.

His pain seemed to double, and he slid to the ground in an inelegant heap. 

He couldn’t concentrate on anything, besides the mind-numbing pain in his chest and a constant fear of  _ something  _ he couldn’t seem to identify.

He was falling. His life trickled through the cracks between his fingers, and all he had left was --

“... Bailey! Professor Bailey!” A voice rung through the thick mud in his hands. He blinked. It was another professor. He couldn’t muster any energy to remember what he taught for the life of him, but he had seen him in break rooms before.

“Are you alright?” He heard the professor speak gently to him, although his underlying neutralness calmed him far more than any kind voice would. 

“I’m, I’m completely fine,” Patton breathed, and a smile instinctively crept onto his face. “Sorry, just got myself in a bit of a tizzy there, didn’t I? Sorry to worry you, Professor, but I--”

“I wasn’t worried.” Logan’s eyes narrowed to Patton’s, and the pure honesty in his words took him aback. “You realize you were having a panic attack, correct? I just did what any logical passerby would do.”

“...huh.”

“You are, biologically, most certainly  _ not  _ fine. High levels of epinephrine have been released into your system, and you will likely experience a great deal of dizziness afterward.” 

“I really am fine! I just need to--” Patton scrambled up against the wall, hoisting himself upwards. He was immediately swarmed with nausea, and the halls turned diagonally on their edges.

“I am going to touch you. Sorry.” The apology was mumbled quietly and quickly in Patton’s ear, before he immediately felt half his body weight shift to Logan’s back, his right arm wrapped around Logan’s shoulders.

Patton slumped in resignment. He wanted to stop thinking. Leaning on someone felt so incredibly weightless, and he couldn’t help but begin to calm.   
  
“Where were you going?”

“Mm?”

“Before you saw… me. Where were you going?”

“To Rehearsal Studio B.”

“With the piano, right?” The lack of brain to mouth filter, and the overwhelming sense of tiredness pervading Patton’s spirit, even beyond his allegro heartrate, prompted the next words to fall out. “If you could, could you play me something? Something small. Just until I calm down a bit?”

Patton seemed to realize his blunder. 

“No, sorry, didn’t mean that. That was pretty needy, wasn’t it? I don’t know what came over me. Sorry--”

“Sure.”

“What?” 

“It makes no difference to me whether or not someone listens to my music, and the rehearsal rooms are closer than your room.” Logan looked straight ahead. “It wouldn’t make sense to decline.”

“Oh. That makes sense. Sorry.”

“You apologize too much,” Logan replied. “There’s no reason to feel ashamed to exist, Professor Bailey. It’s contradictory to the human condition.”

Logan gently set down Patton in the corner of the room, before sitting down at the piano. 

The first notes of “Once Upon A December” began to play and Patton melted at the nostalgia. His mother used to play the song at bedtime, and her measures used to dance with so much love, Patton could hardly breathe. He’d wonder what he’d need to do to deserve such love, and he’d smother himself with a smile, and be unable to sleep.

Logan’s music, however, gave him his breath. 

It was pristine, and every note arrived precisely on cue, as dictated. There seemed to be no passion in each note, and Patton appreciated it increasingly more with every note played.

Patton’s life was a desert. Constant sunshine burned him, the passion building and turning all he stood on to sand. Before he realized it, it had become sickening. 

But, in front of him now, was a stunning oasis. His respite, his support, his break. How long had it last been since he had really  _ breathed? _

His heart calmed and inhaled with him, releasing his sand with every exiting breath. By the time the final notes rang on the piano, Patton was calmer than he’d ever been in his life, and he slowly stood up. 

“That was amazing,” Patton commented before Logan had even stood.

“Yes.”

“It was… beautiful.” Patton continued, ignoring Logan’s reply. The moment Logan’s eyes met his, Patton fixed his gaze with such genuine wonder that Logan nearly took a step back in recoil.

“People... don’t usually say... that,” Logan remarked haltingly.

“What do they say?”

“Textbook perfect. Pristine. Immaculate.” Logan paused and stared at Patton, confused. It was a new look for the professor. “My music has never been called beautiful before.”

“I think it’s beautiful.” Patton beamed and his eyes sparkled.  _ Sparkled.  _ Logan thought it was just a cliche phrase used in low-grade romance novels, but the contradiction stood in front of him, and his eyes were…

Logan felt himself offer a small, lopsided smile in return.

“Thank you.”

Patton’s eyes softened. He had an inkling that the professor wasn’t someone who usually smiled; perhaps he didn’t have many things to smile about. Patton slowly got up from the ground, leaning against the wall for support. 

He looked at the professor. Patton wanted to stay with him, wanted to indulge in this oasis forever, but he was troubling, wasn’t he? 

“Thank you. For, for, yunno, showing up when you did. You really saved me there.” Patton stumbled over the words rather clumsily, but something on his face told Logan that he meant every word. 

So, Logan bit his “it was a matter of probability; there’s no rational reason for gratitude” down, and nodded gently back.

“Really, truly, you did. I should really get on with grading some papers, but since I’m here already, I might as well practice a little bit of violin! I, um,” Patton looked down and swallowed a lump that formed in his throat before plastering a smile on and looking back at Logan again. “I’m actually quite terrible at violin, yunno, I’m not very sure why my partner deals with me. So I’m just gonna work really hard! Because it’ll pay off! I’m sure it will! I’m sure, I’m sure… because it has to. Or else I’ll--” Tears were streaming down Patton’s cheeks before he knew it, a clear reflection of the unsettled chaos still raging inside him.

“Bailey?” Patton barely registered Logan’s voice, which came from beside him in an instant. A warm hand squeezed his shoulder. “Professor Bailey? Are you having another panic attack?”

“No, no, I’m good!” Patton wiped away his tears bashfully with his palm, embarrassed that a professor he didn’t know the name of had seen his worst sides in rapid succession. Upon seeing Logan with a skeptical expression, he quickly tacked on, “I swear! I’m really fine! I’m just a bit… sensitive after… yunno...”

“If so, why are you clutching my hand so tenaciously?”

Patton glanced at his hand, wrapped desperately around Logan’s; his knuckles had gone white with effort. He immediately let go.

“Oh gosh! I’m, I’m so sorry, I don’t know when that happened, I just-- woah, when did that-- I’m so sorry!”

“If it’s any consolation, Professor Bailey,  _ I _ quite like your music.”

Patton froze. 

“You… you do?” 

“Yes.” Logan chose not to elaborate, but Patton still thought the world had gotten a little better, somehow.

“When did you…?”

“The Capriciocco.” Logan avoided the question, and Patton found he didn’t mind at all. “It was well done.”

“Thank, thank you.” Patton stared at him, bewildered.

“Of course, it did need a bit of touching up.” Logan turned and held Patton’s hands in his own. Patton paid rapt attention to how Logan’s slender, calloused fingers ran over his, and fought down the blush that rose up his neck. “You’ve stopped shaking, Professor Bailey. Perhaps your encore may be in order.”

“No better time than the present!” Patton blurted in a single breath, taking his hands from Logan’s and running to the practice room down the hall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> writing a little bit each day?
> 
> non non non non non
> 
> writing in massive terrible blocks on random days into the AM?
> 
> yes
> 
> *  
hello i do not edit my chapters because i post them in a fit of adrenaline filled determination and that is why they suck, i am no coward


	3. Freddo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Freddo - unemotional, cold

“Alright, kids, the bell’s gonna ring in about 2 minutes! 6:30, by the way, is my favorite time…” Patton paused, watching some of his students scrunch up their noses, knowing what would come next. “...HANDS DOWN!” 

The bell rang just as he grinned at the sound of groans and a few giggles. 

“Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye! Remember, see me for office hours if you need help with your composition!” The students slowly trickled out of his room.

Patton eyed the cookies on his desk. He had baked them that afternoon, planning for it to be a conversation starter to ask Michael when they would meet to practice. He rocked forward and backward on his feet, waiting for the last students to leave. 

A minute or so passed, and only two students remained. Patton recognized them as the passionate overachiever who raised his hand for every question and the quiet boy who always sat beside him. If only he knew their names… 

“You know, Princey, you wouldn’t need to spend two weeks putting away your stuff every day if you didn’t lay them out on your desk like a Michaels display,” The quiet boy deadpanned, holding one of “Princey”’s gel pens closer to his eyes.

“Princey”, meanwhile, was shoving all his materials in different pockets of his bag in no particular order. 

“Is this… a panda print pen? It writes in sparkly black and white ink in stripes.” The quiet boy squinted at the label before looking up at “Princey.” “I’ve never seen you use this in your life.”

“You never know when you could need a gel pen, Virge. I plan to have my notes color-coded and organized now! This is the year!” Princey boomed in response. 

“You’ve said that every year since we were 8. And you don’t even take notes.” “Virge” commented.

“I can’t help that! I really like this class’ professor, and here, it’s the feelings that count, not the fancy-schmancy Italian dynamics and tempo, like the class down the hall. Although, arguably, I do sound quite powerful and heroic when I pronounce them.” 

“Virge” snorted.

Patton was flattered that a student was so engaged in his lectures, but was more interested by the mention of “the class down the hall.” He knew it’d be rude to reveal his eavesdropping, but he couldn’t resist. He glanced towards the cookies, thinking of Michael and of practice. They could wait.

Patton climbed the stairs of the classroom to reach their desks. 

“Hey kids, sorry for listenin’ in on you, but I heard you mention a class down the hall? That professor did me a huge favor, but I still can’t remember his name for the life of me.” Patton rested his elbows on their table and gave them a sheepish smile.

“Why don’t you just ask him for his name? I mean, I dunno why you’re asking us-- OW!” Virge kicked Princey in the shin before he could continue.

“Sorry for him, Professor Bailey. I--”

“What… the… fuck, Virgil?” Princey strained out, holding his injured shin. 

“Suck it up, Princey.” Virgil (Patton was pretty sure that was his real name) countered, before turning back to Patton. “The name of the professor down the hall is Professor Logan Sanders. He teaches Music Theory.” 

“What did he do?” Princey asked, recovered from the kick. “Sanders is a good professor, but he doesn’t really  _ do  _ favors.” The comment earned another kick to the shin from Virgil. 

Patton grinned. “You two get along really well, don’tcha?” 

“Are you blind, Professor?” Princey instantly replied. “DON’T!” He yelped, eyeing Virgil.

Virgil shrugged in response. 

“You’re… Princey, was it?” Patton ventured, and he could’ve sworn he saw Virgil flinch. Before Princey could reply, Virgil snapped. 

“His real name is Roman.” Virgil’s tone was almost forceful, as if he hated the idea of anyone else calling Roman “Princey”.

“Oh?” Patton was simple, but he wasn’t blind. “Roman, then.”

Patton noted how Virgil slumped in relief. 

“Could you tell me more about Professor Sanders?” 

“Oh, sure,” Roman started. “He’s pretty tall, at least like six feet. He’d play a good prince character if he didn’t look so serious all the time, maybe he’d be better as the villain--”

“No!” Patton interjected, and two pairs of surprised eyes fell on him. “Uh, no, sorry, I meant no, as in, I wanted to know more about his personality.”

“Oh.” Roman stopped to think. “He’s a dick.”

“Princey.” Virgil looked at him.

“A smart dick who’s good at everything.” Roman conceded. “I’ve never seen him smile.”

_ I have.  _ Patton thought, and for whatever reason pride swelled up in his chest. He knew it was just by chance, and that it was just a certain string of coincidences, but  _ still.  _ It felt important.

“He’s my piano tutor,” Virgil added. “He’s really good at his job, but he’s pretty stubborn, and he hyper focuses pretty often, so he’ll forget to eat or sleep sometimes.”

“He forgets to  _ what _ ?!” 

…

“My mom, uh, baked some cookies, and she, uh, she made some extra, so she told me to give them to you.” Virgil scratched the back of his neck, avoiding eye contact with Logan.

Logan watched, only  _ slightly  _ entertained, as Virgil executed approximately 36 of the world’s most common signs of dishonesty. 

“Thank you. That was very kind of her.” Logan accepted the cookies regardless, and the distinct smell of  _ something  _ struck him nearly immediately. He’d definitely smelled it before, and somehow, it explicitly reminded him of

“Professor Bailey.” Logan blurted, surprising himself.

Virgil flinched. Logan thought that was confirmation enough. Professor Bailey made the cookies, and for some unknown reason, decided to not give it to him in person. 

But Professor Bailey made him cookies. That bubbly, overenthusiastic professor had specifically, gone out of his way to…

“Do, uh, yes, do give him my thanks, Virgil.” Logan stuttered. Stuttered? He never stuttered. And due to some sort of health anomaly, he was sure, Logan’s face felt very, very warm.

Virgil stared at him, wide-eyed.

“What are you doing, standing there idle like that? Begin your warmups. Take out Etude 51 and be careful with the dynamics…” 

And the normal Logan was back, Virgil commented to himself.

…

“Take a break.” Logan clapped his hands, and Virgil stopped playing the piece. “Good composition, Virgil. I assume it’s a duet?” 

“Uh, yeah.”

“You do tend to write duets. It seems to me, Virgil, that you cater them to, specifically, a violinist who is technically imperfect. There’s little to no pressure on the violinist in any of your pieces, and so in turn, the pressure falls on the pianist.”

“Right.” Virgil nodded.

“It shows. You ignored the dynamic you wrote on measure 43, and elongated the rests at measure 50 through 67. Those were the major mistakes, but there were plenty more. Composition writing was good, but the execution was atrocious. We’ll discuss it after break.”

“...right.” Virgil headed for the door, wishing that once he left, he wouldn’t need to come back.

As Virgil quietly lingered near the door, he heard the cookie box open, and turned around in time to see Logan take a small, calculated bite. 

“Cinnamon in chocolate chip.” Virgil heard Logan mutter. “Bailey.”

Virgil blinked. It was small, nearly unnoticeable if you didn’t look close enough, but Logan was  _ smiling _ . 

Feeling very mysteriously as if he had seen something he wasn’t supposed to see, Virgil quickly left the room.

…

He should thank him. It was common etiquette, of course. After all, Bailey decided to specifically make him cookies. Yes, it may have been out of gratitude for the one time Logan played him a song, but it wasn’t as if Bailey was at all troubling. And Logan had helped him, not only because it was the logical thing to do, but because, for some ineffable reason, seeing Bailey upset had upset him as well, and so Logan had  _ wanted  _ to help.

Logan had never  _ wanted  _ much of anything in his life. 

There was a multitude of things he  _ didn’t  _ want, such as a new dynamic Roman Carter had come up with (“Look, Professor, it’s an f with an extra line below the first one! It’s like forte, but more… passionate. Like… fortissimo but with more feeling.” Roman gasped. “forARTISTimo...!” He whispered, enchanted. From beside him, Virgil groaned.), an orchestra that wouldn’t listen to him or his father’s reappearance in his life.

For a long time, all he wanted was stability. 

Logan was always a more quiet child, who, most times, was agreeable and reasonable. He was, however, extraordinarily picky. Picky with food, picky with friends, and especially picky with music.

After all, it was that same music that Logan would press over his ears every night, to drown out his father’s harsh yelling, and his mother’s heartbroken wailing. 

The reasons for his father’s anger changed every day. The way his father hit his mother changed every day. Somedays, he broke bones. Every day, he broke Logan’s mother’s heart.

His mother’s crying changed every day. Somedays, her cries would be muffled by herself, muted. Other days, she’d wail, screaming for someone, anyone, to save her. 

But little Logan, who had learned how to stop crying (it only angered his father more) and stop shaking, only leaned against a wall of his own, immaculate bedroom, slamming his hands over headphones, turning the volume on his broken iPod to its max.

The screaming and the crying changed every day. The fear he felt was constant, but still fluctuated. 

The music never changed. Those same chords striking the same rhythms, as Logan had heard over and over and over again, always arrived precisely as he expected. His headphones became his lifeboat in a violent sea of rolling waves.

When his mother ran away, his father’s fists fell onto him, and he took every blow wordlessly. He just clutched his headphones harder.

When his father was imprisoned, the only thing Logan took from his “childhood home” with him to foster care were his headphones and his iPod. 

Logan had always been different, so he strived to become the standard in what he surmised to be some sort of coping mechanism. Becoming the standard in the music he enveloped himself in made him unshakeable. 

He thought he couldn’t be moved anymore.

And, because life never accepted his conclusions, Bailey’s violin drifted into his room, and it shook him to his core. The next day would find him letting Bailey into his practice room, and with one,  _ one  _ compliment from the professor, Logan found himself jarred again. 

“Beautiful.”

Logan played it over and over in his mind obsessively, looking for some sort of ulterior motive, for some sort of dishonesty.

And there was none.

Perhaps the striking presence that was Professor Patton Bailey had entranced him, moving him in ways he thought had become impossible for him, Logan thought.

“Hey, Michael!” Logan watched as Patton chased after the other professor. “Hey! I, yunno, I originally baked some cookies for ya, but some stuff came up, and  _ anyway!  _ Are we practicing today? The Rondo Capriccioso piano-violin duet, I mean.”

So the cookies weren’t for Logan. Right. Yes. That was fine. 

“Uh, nah, I can’t make it today. Sorry, buddy.” Logan twitched as he watched Michael blatantly lie to Bailey’s face.

“Oh, sure. That’s, that’s fine!” There was a slight dip in Bailey’s tone, a lilt of disappointment before he covered it up with his usual tension. Logan suddenly felt the urge to deck Michael.

Bailey caught sight of him and immediately brightened, though Logan couldn’t tell if he was really smiling or not. 

“Hey Professor San--”

“I’ll play the duet with you.” Logan looked at Bailey resolutely.

“What?” 

“The duet. The Rondo Capriccioso. I’ll practice with you.” 

“You will?” Bailey looked so delighted that for once, Logan thanked his lack of impulse-control.

“Yes. Consider it thanks for the cookies.”

“The cookies? I… you figured it out?” Bailey looked at Logan sheepishly.

“Virgil wasn’t exactly the best choice. Anyway, about the duet?”

“Oh. Yes. Yes! A million yeses!” Bailey’s eyes lit up. “Thank you! Thank you so much! You’ll be my practice partner then, right? Temporarily? You have no idea how amazing this is. Thank you so much.”

“It’s my pleasure, Professor Bailey.” Logan nodded.

Logan glanced at Bailey’s face, all semblances of disappointment and melancholy gone, replaced by excited rambling and thrilled hand gestures.

He couldn’t find it in himself to regret his split-second decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy holidays everyone!!!!
> 
> give santa some cinnamon chocolate chip cookies! spice things up a bit. the old man needs a little bit of adventure.


	4. Apaisé

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Patton and Logan play music together for the first time and both are surprised at how absolutely *natural* it feels. Also, Patton's a genius, Logan's an idiot, and both of them love red pen far too much.

“Are you ready to begin, Professor Bailey?” Logan asked, enjoying the slight popping sound his fingers made when he flexed them. They’d both warmed up separately with their etudes, making sure everything was in working order.

“Almost! I think one of my pegs is loose…” Patton replied, trying another note on his violin before grimacing again. “Nope, that doesn’t sound right.”

Logan blinked at him. It  _ was  _ off, but it was so slight that nobody would’ve been able to pick it up except for Logan. Or so he’d thought. 

“Professor Bailey…” 

“Hm?” Patton fiddled with his pegs.

“Do you have perfect pitch?”

“Don’t you?” Patton asked back absentmindedly, the lack of an answer implying a solid “yes”. 

Logan stared back at him, knowing that the fact Patton had even asked implied that he knew Logan did. 

“Spectacular,” Logan muttered quietly to himself, and the wonder in his voice took him by surprise. He watched as Patton tried another note on his violin and grumbled adorably. Logan fought a smile. 

“They...just… aren’t…staying!” Patton muttered, and Logan gave the violin a sideways glance. He’d tuned Bailey’s violin before, and he had, of course, noticed that the pegs were starting to wear down, just slightly. Again, not enough to warrant complaints from any other violinist, but for Bailey, who had perfect pitch…

“You need new pegs. Give it here for now.” Logan held his arm out, waiting for Patton to pass him the violin. After a moment of deliberation, the instrument was passed, and Logan removed a peg. 

“What are you doing?” Patton followed him as Logan pulled a small piece of sandpaper out of his bag.

“Temporary solution. Your pegs are slipping, so we’ll rough up the surface a bit for friction to keep it in place.” With a thumb over the offending peg, Logan rubbed the coarse sandpaper on it, before nodding and slipping it back into the violin. A millimeter and a half to the right, though. Yes. That looked satisfactory. “Here you are.”

“Thank you,” Patton answered as he took the violin, almost as if by instinct. He took a deep breath in and held it as he slid his bow across the strings, holding his tuning note for a few seconds longer than usual. Patton paused and dropped his hand to his side, silent.

“Is something the matt-”

“...it’s perfect.” Patton’s voice was barely above a whisper, but it was filled with such wonder, such reverence, that Logan couldn’t help but drown in it. He cleared his throat.

“Well, yes--, right, yes, of course it is.” Logan haltingly replied, his mind seeming to have screeched to a halt. 

“No, but I don’t think you understand, I’ve  _ never  _ been able to tune it perfectly; I’ve always kinda settled and worked with it, but you just-- oh my gosh, I can’t believe-- yes!” Patton hugged his violin to his chest, and Logan watched as his face steadily brightened. 

He couldn’t help but think it was one of the most beautiful things he’d ever seen.

“Right,” Logan coughed, banishing the thought from his head. “Shall we begin?”

“Yes, of course, right!” Patton nodded enthusiastically, before setting his violin on his shoulder.

“One, two, one, two…” Logan counted off, before beginning the piano’s soft intro. 

Patton’s slow violin joined in soon after, and Logan almost couldn’t recognize his playing. Patton appeared to be following the music exactly, wary of the notes and terrified of messing up. Logan didn’t like it, but said nothing, basing his piano accompaniment off of Patton’s music.

Patton, as the measures went on, seemed to be almost surprised that Logan’s accompaniment followed and complimented him perfectly, and experimentally, dragged out one of the more solemn measures, expecting Logan to be unable to follow him.

Patton swore Logan nearly smiled, instead, before following him perfectly. Patton felt his heart leap in his chest. Logan’s unwavering support held steady even at his tangents, and he didn’t know if it was just because he didn’t have the piano accompaniment before, but the piece sounded worlds better than the bland violin solo it once was.

As Patton played the faster measures with genuine cheerfulness, Logan saw Patton’s eyes begin to close. When Patton was no longer looking at the music, Logan felt Patton’s passion completely overtake the score, escalating it from Saint-Saen’s Capriciocco to  _ Patton’s. _

He couldn’t tell where Patton’s emotions ended and where the music began. It was one, conglomerate blob of something that was original, and so, so  _ distinctly Patton _ , that Logan had to rip his eyes away from his own music sheets and put all his focus into following Patton, and Patton only.

It was the first time Logan had ever played music separate from its score, and it was so  _ incredibly invigorating he didn’t know what to do with himself.  _ He was excited, he felt his childish excitement bubble up from somewhere deep inside of him, as he let everything around him disappear. It was only him and Patton in the world, and his only job was to follow Patton’s sound.

_ Yes, _ Logan’s heart cried, nearly forgetting to beat in his absolute focus.  _ Finally. This, this is  _ ** _music! _ **

Patton, meanwhile, was racing forward, enough adrenaline pumping through his veins to run a marathon. But, compared to before, when he was running that marathon on wobbly legs, his own solo sounding crooked and  _ wrong,  _ he was now running towards something full-speed, the piano behind him solidifying his sound and precisely tracking and following every  _ single  _ step he took. He was never alone. He would never trip, never stumble, as long as Logan was behind him. 

Patton beamed as he played the final note, and saw the same wonder reflected in Logan’s face.

“Incredible,” They both said simultaneously. They looked at each other again, and both men seemed to have the same epiphany: I only want to play with you, from now until forever.

In that moment, they became one in the only way the two knew how, and in realizing that, both let out a breathless laugh. 

Surprisingly, the moment didn’t end when Logan remarked that he needed to write the iteration down. 

Patton laughed.

“You are  _ such  _ a Music Theory professor.” 

“Perhaps, Bailey, that may be because I  _ am  _ one.” 

The conversation ended there, as Patton wordlessly grabbed the sheet music from the piano stand and spread the pages out on the floor in a grid. Logan threw him a red pen, and they knelt on the floor together, annotating and writing and composing silently, their breaths in time with each other. 

_ Like second nature _ , Patton thought to himself as he crossed out a dynamic he noticed Logan was eyeing for a while. When Logan nodded, satisfied, Patton felt a wave of  _ something  _ in his chest. He shook it off. 

…

“120 BPM on measure 112,” Logan remarked, mostly to himself.

“125.” Patton responded without looking up from the page. 

“What?” 

“What.” Patton stared at him blankly for all of two seconds before switching back to his normal complacency. “I mean-- you can put 120 if you want, I’m sure I’m at least a little inaccurate sometimes--”

“125.” Logan cut him off, rolling his eyes. Patton may have felt scared that he offended him, if not for the slight dimple on Logan’s cheek.

…

They played the piece again, and again, and again, as frantically as a cocaine-addict searched for drugs, and annotated the copy of the music on the floor until it was more red ink than score. Hours passed without them noticing, the world tilting on its axis and turning the sky from blue to black with each time they played.

Patton, after commenting that he should go home to prepare for his lecture for tomorrow, began to reach for the sheets on the carpet, intending to harry them into a folder, no doubt. Logan waved off his wrist before he touched the papers. 

“I’ve reserved this room for tomorrow as well, so there’s no real need to, well, to…” 

“Clean up?” Patton smiled. Patton knew just how out of character Logan knew he was acting, watching as Logan flushed from his neck to his cheekbones. “Sure.”

“And, Bailey?” Logan’s voice was nearly quiet. When Patton turned to him, Logan flicked a folded piece of paper at him.

Patton unfolded it, struggling to keep a smile from splitting his face in half when he saw “Logan - 201-392-5532” penned perfectly in Logan’s immaculate script.

“Patton.” Patton blurted, excitement bleeding into his voice. “You can call me Patton, Logan.”

Patton went home that night, unable to forget the way that Logan’s cheeks dimpled, and the way his eyes beamed. 

…

Patton texted Logan the next morning at around 8 AM, a quiet-sounding “coffee at mal’s?”

Logan texted back immediately, a curt, perfectly-punctuated “On my way.”

…

“I didn’t know that Roman worked as a barista.” Logan commented carefully, eyeing his student in a brown apron with the logo of “Mallord Coffee Shop” printed in a cute, bubbly script. 

“I figured.” Patton smiled (but when did he not?). “Yunno, I’ve heard business has started booming ever since he started working here.”

“Has it?” Logan raised an eyebrow as he shuffled forward in line.

“Yup! I mean, Roman’s a piece of work, for sure. Single, as far as all the girls are concerned, and well,” Patton waggled his eyebrows for effect. “..Devilishly handsome.”

“‘As far as all the girls are concerned’?” Logan picked out, throwing a meaningful glance over his shoulder at Roman, who was currently busying himself flirting with any X chromosome he saw, which is to say… everyone. “He seems quite single to me.”

“Not exactly,” Patton replied, and Logan could see his giddy excitement behind the usual smile. Patton was waiting for Logan to ask why, and he internally rolled his eyes before delivering.

It was worth it for the beam that Patton sported immediately after.

“Take a good looksie right over… there.” Patton winked in a general direction. When Logan followed his gaze, he blinked at a certain insomniac piano prodigy wearing an oversized purple hoodie, sipping lightly at a cup of coffee. 

Logan’s known Virgil for years; Virgil  _ despised  _ coffee. 

He looked back at Patton, trying to suppress his elated grin while looking at Logan. Something clicked.

“...Ah.” Logan uttered eloquently.

“Right? It’s so obvious!” Patton whisper-yelled. “I’m dumb, but I’m not blind-- who do they think they’re fooling?”

_ Me,  _ Logan thought, embarrassed, combing through years of interactions with Virgil and Roman and berating himself for being completely oblivious to it all.

“You’re smart where it matters, Patton.” Logan responded, not noticing how Patton stopped rambling to stare at him in wonder.

“...thanks.”

Their turn to order comes soon after Logan realizes that every single piece Virgil has ever written was dedicated to Roman.

“Professor Patton! With… Professor Sanders?” Roman recognizes them immediately, but shrugs it off. “Bailey, your usual?” 

Patton gave a nod.

“And… Professor Sanders?” 

“Black coffee, please, Roman. Thank you.”

“Figures.” Roman laughed to himself, before flinching, as if realizing something.

“I don’t mind the remarks at this point, Roman,” Logan commented tiredly. 

“No, I know, but Virgil’s definitely glaring absolute daggers at me. Politeness, and all that, right?” Roman paused, before quietly muttering, “God, he’s Pavloved me.” 

The words, which held within themselves a tone of bitterness, were completely overshadowed by the amused wonder on Roman’s face. 

Logan kicked himself. Patton grinned from ear to ear.

_ All in all, _ Logan thought,  _ it wasn’t a bad start to his morning. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> look I can explain
> 
> (checks last update: three months ago)
> 
> ok no I can't explain


	5. Coffee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Logan falls for Patton between coffees and rehearsals in a subtle set of events.

Patton watched as Logan sipped elegantly from his coffee. Well, if “elegantly” meant “looking like he was trying not to grimace”. It was slight, but Logan’s eyebrows drew together every time he lifted his cup close enough to smell the black coffee.

He was already sitting rather stiffly, Patton noted, but every sip made him stiffen just a bit more. If it weren’t for the image of Logan hunched over music sheets, furiously annotating while his cheeks dimpled brightly, Patton might have assumed he always sat like that. 

Patton watched, trying to fight a grin, as Logan took a long final sip of his black coffee and his left pinky twitched, irritated.

“What is it, Bai--” Logan cut himself off. “Patton?”

Patton was definitely grinning now.

“Nothing! Just, well, do you like cinnamon?” Patton leaned slightly forward, and watched Logan’s eyes widen in a look of genuine surprise.

“I, I suppose I’m not against it, but--”

“Perfect!” Patton filed the information away for later. “Anywhoozle, I wanted to ask, does Roman curve his treble clefs in a weird way in your class too, or is it just in mine?”

_ “Yes.”  _ Logan shuddered. “It’s absolutely terrible. Unrecognizable even. He says the extra curves give it nuance.”

“Nuance? More like NO-ance!” Patton relished the way Logan closed his eyes in a cringe.

He didn’t miss how Logan’s cheeks dimpled, though. 

…

Their second rehearsal was much like the first, in the exhilaration after the music stopped, and the adrenaline-filled silent annotating that followed. They ran out of space to write after the first hour had passed, and Logan ran out to print another copy to annotate on.

Patton snorted at the way Logan’s usually perfect hair had stuck up at the ends by the time he ran back, and tucked a loose strand behind Logan’s ear.

Logan had stiffened, and Patton nearly had too, thinking he might have crossed some sort of boundary, but it was only for a moment, before Logan leaned into the touch, and smiled back.

Patton wasn’t sure how he kept breathing.

…

At the third rehearsal, they’d stopped to reread each other’s annotations before beginning to play. Logan tried to muffle his chuckles at some of Patton’s drawings, bubbly and brightly drawn next to loopy, slightly messy script. 

Patton, noticing this, drew more tiny sketches next to Logan’s comments, but not before giving himself a few moments to admire how neat and perfect Logan’s handwriting was. 

“I’ve been told I write like a typewriter.” Logan commented, after a slightly smug glance in Patton’s direction.

“Am I a typeREADER, then?” Patton asked, and Logan took a moment to burn Patton’s smile into his eyes before he rolled them.

Even after a few more playthroughs, the exhilaration and excitement from being perfectly matched at every measure never left. However, alongside it, Patton noted, there was now a sort of togetherness, the calm sort that felt like a trust fall when you knew the other person would never let you hit the ground.

…

After 4 sets of wrecked pens, the two of them decided to stop annotating, and just practice from their existing annotations. 

“Um… Logan?” 

“Yes?”

“What does this say?” Patton pointed at a dynamic on the page he was holding, squinting at it.

His brows furrowed together in concentration, and Logan couldn’t help but think he was absolutely adorable. Logan came up behind him, his face only a centimeter away from Patton’s, but still managed out an: “It’s a mezzo-piano, Patton.”

“It… huh. I guess it is.”

Logan caught sight of Patton’s dirty lenses, and sighed.

“It’s your glasses. Here, allow me.” Logan removed Patton’s glasses with a feather-soft touch to both temples of his head. 

Patton focused on how Logan’s hands smelled of cork grease and faintly of wood, lest he went insane.

Patton stared, dumbfounded, as Logan reached into his pocket and pulled out a glasses cloth, cleaning his lenses in controlled, circular movements.

Logan took the glasses, tucking a strand of wavy hair behind Patton’s ear as he slipped the glasses back on. Patton leaned into the touch nearly immediately, warmth spreading from every tiny place of contact.

Logan chuckled, and it sent ripples of heat through Patton’s chest. 

“Turnabout’s fair play, Patton.” 

His voice was almost in Patton’s ear, and oh dear, had his voice always been that low, was Patton breathing, is this what a heart attack felt like because Patton was going to explode this was unfair; he was unfair attractive, with his stupid intelligent eyes and his glasses and his nosebridge and his always perfect hair--

“I, uh, I, this, I, sorry, I just,  _ thank you _ .” Patton heard himself say.

Patton’s final working brain cell fizzed the second he saw Logan smile back.

…

Two and a half months ago, Logan’s office was impeccable. One polished wooden desk, three perfectly filled-to-the-brim bookshelves, a piano, tucked against the wall, and a cabinet of files and supplies, like pens and sticky notes. He had a perfectly clean floor that was waxed and cleaned regularly, and most importantly, his office was  _ efficient.  _

His office existed only to work in, and the piano was only ever played to test a student’s composition or to double check the playing of a dynamic.

And then, two months ago, Patton stumbled into his life, all teary-eyed and panicked but obviously trying to hide it (he’d thought about their first encounter almost obsessively). The rehearsal room was only available certain days, and so their practices moved to Logan’s office. 

It was 7:30 AM in the morning when it sunk in. Logan settled into his desk, pushing aside stacks of annotated music scores with Patton (most of them not even the Capriocioso anymore; they’d played a lot of pieces just for fun), and watching, slightly annoyed, as two red pens fell to the ground. He got up to pick them up before noticing small smudges on his floor. 

A quick recall reminded him that the black skid near the door was from the time Patton tripped while opening the door too excitedly, before stumbling, his shoes leaving a prominent skid mark behind. 

The red stain near the couch was a jocund memory of Patton, annotating so furiously without break that his pen snapped in his hands, leaving the ink to drip on the floor. 

He looked around his office again, with new eyes, and a warm heart. 

His books weren’t perfectly straight anymore, now that Patton had asked if he could borrow some of his musical composition and theory textbooks to read, and after Patton had kept asking, and asking, Logan had thrown him a copy of his office key, and told him to take whatever he wanted. 

His couch was rumpled, now, he observed fondly. Patton liked to stay in his office even after rehearsals ended, grading papers, or reading one of Logan’s rare novels he found on his bookshelf.

He spotted one on his coffee table.  _ All The Bright Places  _ by Jennifer Niven, marked by a small cupcake bookmark in the middle of the third chapter. He’d need to restock his nonexistent tissue supply, Logan supposed. Also splayed across his coffee table was an assortment of violin magazines, and a mug that read “Here’s a CLEF-er pun!” which smelled vaguely of cinnamon.

The entire room smelled slightly like cinnamon, now, and Logan hadn’t loved cinnamon until that exact moment.

Actually, rather suspiciously strongly of cinnamon. Where was it--? Oh.

Logan wasn’t sure how he missed the blue plaid thermos sitting on his desk. He picked it up, turning it around to find “Black coffee is for people with black souls and I think you have a cinnamon soul :D” scrawled in a loopy script that Logan seemed to be overly familiar with.

The thermos was still warm, he realized.

Logan took a small sip and sighed happily. A perfect cinnamon coffee. The best he’d ever had in his life. Admittedly, the first he’d ever had in his life, but it was quickly becoming his all time favorite.

It was so sweet. Deliciously sweet and creamy and satisfying and the perfect temperature.

He thought of Patton, sneaking a cinnamon-scented thermos in his room at 7AM to surprise him, giddy as he scribbled a quick note on a post-it. 

He took another sip, and Logan wanted to have this morning everyday for the rest of his life. He wanted to have Patton in his office the rest of his life. He wanted to have  _ Patton _ , he realized. 

Logan leaned against his desk, and heard the sigh before he felt it. He sounded like a lovestruck teenager.

_ Shit. _

_ … _

Logan returned the thermos and thanked Patton for the coffee, telling him that he didn’t know he loved cinnamon coffee until that moment, and relished the way that Patton’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. 

Logan had always taken pride in his nearly photographic memory, as it had served him well throughout his studies and through his career, but at that moment he wished it was an insurmountable lot better than it was, because he wanted to repeat that 3 second clip, over and over and over again.

…

The coffee kept appearing on his desk. Vanilla coffee, chocolate coffee, but most regularly cinnamon coffee, every single morning, always with a healthy helping of whipped cream. There was always a small post-it beside it, a short music pun with a little :D every time he looked.

He kept them in a small box on his nightstand, and on particularly bad nights, when the nightmares of his father left him jolting awake in a cold sweat, he would open the box, and reread the notes, finding comfort in the constant inconsistencies of Patton’s handwriting, and trying to smile along with his little smiley faces.

January found him more sleepless than ever, the cold of his apartment making his nightmares go haywire. He hated snow, detested it even, and that’s why he even moved to a town like this, a town known for nearly never snowing, but this winter seemed to have a vendetta against him, so he graded papers by the dim light of his desk lamp in his bedroom at 3AM.

A text nearly made him flinch.

_ Patton:  _ we’re still meeting up at 8?

He checked his digital clock. 7:30 AM on a Saturday. He practically pulled an all-nighter. He replied quickly.

_ Logan:  _ Yes, of course.

…

“Logan? Are you alright? You’ve got some terrible bags under your eyes…” Patton’s eyes softened as he took in Logan’s appearance, and unconsciously reached over to tighten up Logan’s tie.

“Yes, I’m fine, I’m fine. Just… a bit of a rough night’s sleep is all.” Logan replied, cringing at how his words were slightly slurred. Logan melted into Patton’s touch on his neck, and it was only due to his last shred of self-control that he managed to  _ not  _ put his forehead on Patton’s shoulder, despite how much he smelled of cinnamon and vanilla and everything nice in the world.

Logan lagged slightly during practice. Not enough to be discernible by the average music nerd, but Patton wasn’t average.

He’d shot him worried glances when he thought Logan wasn’t looking, and Logan could tell his mind was racing with concern. 

Logan tried not to show how warm he felt on his face. How long had it been since someone worried about him?

“Do you have any classes on Monday?” Patton asked randomly.

“No.” Logan replied, although he was sure Patton already knew that.

“How about any meetings? Anything important?”

“Not really.”

“Ok, good.”

…

On Monday morning, the thermos he’d become used to seeing smelled decidedly different, and he spotted a small box beside it. A sip told him that Patton had replaced his morning coffee with a matcha latte, and left him a small box of chamomile tea beside it.

“A smaller caffeine FIX to FIX your sleeping habits! :D” was written on the thermos, and “please drink warm before bed, feel better soon :)” was written on the chamomile tea.

Logan smiled tiredly, and he nearly felt tears well up in his eyes.

_ How thoughtful. _

…

Remarkably, the lattes and the chamomile helped him greatly, and the snowy days of January soon ended, leaving Logan this year not bitter and tired, but satisfied and relieved.

...

After what was probably a hundred thousand renditions, Logan was proud to say they had the Capricioso to an art. He’d taken home the sheets of annotated music, and completely recopied them by hand into an empty score. He supposes, that technically, by now, their revised piece was likely something new altogether.

The thought made him smile. 

He’d been smiling rather a lot lately, hadn’t he? 

“Good morning, Patton.” Logan watched as Patton instantly brightened, smiling and responding with a cheery “Mornin’ Logan!”

Patton jumped off the speaker he was sitting on, and whipped out a stack of papers from his bag.

“Actually, I kinda thought that we had a few too many copies of the Capricioso, so I rewrote it from scratch with the revisions we made, and... Logan?”

Logan couldn’t hold it in anymore. He chuckled into his hand, before laughing wholeheartedly.

“I did too!” He beamed at Patton, holding up his copy of their Capricioso.

Patton stared, dumbstruck for all of 2 seconds, before falling into peals of laughter himself.

…

“Well, we have essentially the same material. Except mine is significantly less…smiley.” Logan gestured to the small emoticons Patton had drawn on his sheet.

“I can fix that for ya!” Patton winked, adorably, and Logan swore his heart somersaulted in his chest. “Just give it here, I’ll correct it during one of my free periods.”

Entranced by Patton’s blinding smile, Logan handed over the stack of sheets without a single complaint. He tried to tell his heart to shut up because he most certainly was not  _ giddy  _ like a high school girl and absolutely  _ excited  _ to read and go through the extra notes and sketches Patton would add.

Little smiley faces, definitely. Little encouragements, positively. Music puns, he would bet his stocks in Crofter’s jam company on it. 

Logan lifted his gaze to Patton’s face, and for once, he let it linger. Brown sparkling doe eyes under thick-rimmed glasses; freckles splattered across pale skin and rosy cheeks; messily cute tousled hair hiding deep smile-lines on his forehead and around his eyes.

That angelic face tilted its head and blinked at him, a small questioning smile on his face.

“Lo?”

Logan’s heart exploded in his chest.

He was absolutely, irrevocably, fucked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELCOME TO CORONACATION YALL
> 
> yes this chapter was literally just 2.5K of fluff and I was beaming when I wrote it   
angst hits next chapter, buckle in, kids


	6. Andromeda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Logan had never been good at holding on to people.

Logan had never been good at holding on to people. 

The nights of blows on flesh, his father’s drunken yelling, anger carved into approximately 78 muscles in his body. The stench of whiskey, which sunk into the damp wooden walls of the cheap apartment and lingered long after the danger had passed. Logan remembered.

Logan remembered The Night, though it was so similar to all of the nights before it. His mother’s resigned, unconscious squeaks of pain sent ripples of hot nausea through Logan’s thin frame, as he determinedly concentrated on the cheap, unpatterned carpet he stood on, knowing that if he closed his eyes, he’d imagine things far worse than a cheap beige. 

He remembered seeing his mother’s hand enter his line of sight, desperately clawing at the fibers of the carpet for support, all sharp movements and edges and white knuckles and thin, bony fingers, shaking with the effort of gripping a meagre life line. 

Despite every thread of logic steering him differently, Logan looked up.

He’ll never forget his mother’s eyes. 

Her face scrunched up, and the tears flowed from infinite brown pools to wet patches on the cheap beige carpet. Pleading eyes begged him, the “please” dying in her throat before being exhaled through shaking lips. She looked at him like he was her final prayer.

He remembered his vision shaking, blurring to white at the edges. He remembered the tendrils of panic so well he still woke up some nights with them on his throat.

“You better not be crying, boy.”

Logan swallowed.

“You cry, and I’ll drop the wench and come fer you instead.”

His mother’s eyes. Her last Hail Mary.  _ “Please.” _

“You crying, boy?”

He met his father’s eyes, and the smell of whiskey permeated him so thickly he was sure he’d suffocate.  _ Pavlov’s dog. _

“No, sir.”

Logan could pinpoint the moment the last flicker of hope in his mother’s eyes died. He’d never forget it. He’d always regret it.

Every trace of his mother left with her, and by the time Logan woke up the following morning, it was like she’d never existed.

By age 13, Logan knew the feeling of deep bruises and shallow cuts and once, the burning of an iron on his bare back, better than he knew any academic subject. 

Even so, the following autumns saw Logan stepping into the finely embroidered rugs of a prestigious boarding school, and his father slinking into the metal walls of a tight prison cell. 

The silence, which at first had been comforting, turned deafening within weeks. Logan had never known a silent life, and being thrust into one so suddenly simply meant that he rounded every corner expecting the dregs of his old life awaiting him.

And once, it was.

Samuel Dockney, 5’11’’, class ranked 93rd in 100, one year Logan’s senior, grabbed his arm, and punched him until Logan’s face went numb, weak taunts of “smartass” and “know-it-all” circling his head.

The nurse, who checked him for broken bones, simply put ice on his bruises and sent him off. No questions were asked, and Logan gave no answers.

“Your piano playing. It’s pretty!” Dorothy Hawthorne, 5’4, class ranked exactly 50, Logan’s peer, once said to him, her smile looking too big for her face.

Dorothy soothed Logan’s paranoia, if only for a moment. She was incessant rambling, and sunshine on grass, and bright pink flowers, and baby blue dresses in spring. She talked and smiled, constantly, and walked beside Logan everywhere. He liked the feeling of distinct non-silence, of unfamiliar, but comfortable non-aloneness in her presence beside her.

“Logan, you’re my bestest friend!” She would say, her arm outstretched towards him.

And he supposed that was why he looked the other way, giving copies and answers of tests and exams to her, his eidetic memory filling Dorothy’s arms with full-scores and gold stars and the rising of her class rank from 50 to 4. 

It was alright that she kept asking. Friends looked out for each other. When Logan caught the endings of Dorothy’s conversations, mottled with his name alongside the words “gullible” and “boring”, Logan told himself that friends forgave, and continued paying prices in test answers and class ranks for Dorothy’s sunshine beside him.

Dorothy’s slap across his cheek burned more than Samuel Dockney’s fists, and Logan uttered not a word of defense when she cornered him in an empty classroom after class.

“Why are they coming after me now?! Samuel and his friends, they, they’re spreading rumors about me and you, and my class rank, and my friends won’t even look me in the eye anymore!”

Dorothy was sunshine, and flowers, and grass, Logan told himself.

“I only played along with you for my class rank, but rumors are spreading about that too! Do something! C’mon, come up with something!”

“I can’t,” Logan answered.

“I’ve dealt with rumors and gossip and everything and your stupid, bad piano playing for weeks! Months! I don’t even like your piano! And you’re so obsessed with your stupid books, and your numbers, and you’re too dense to even doubt me! Rumors, gossip, class rank, your dry,  _ dry  _ conversations, Logan, you aren’t worth it.”

Dorothy was rainbows and rubies and daisies in the sun. But spring passed, and Dorothy left, and Logan returned to the crushing wintry silence of before, missing spring with all his heart.

He supposed that was why he lied to a teacher, for the first time in his life.

Logan cradled his broken arm gingerly, shockwaves of pain turning his insides to sludge, squinting at the teacher with his one, less swollen eye, as his glasses lay crushed to shards behind him. 

The teacher’s blurry face contorted with concern. 

“Logan, what happened?”

Logan made eye contact with Samuel Dockney, hiding behind the corner, terrified eyes staring at him. Even with the Dockney’s influence, Samuel was going to be severely punished for the severe injuries of another student.

Logan remembered their net worth and each settlement to the penny, and calculated a period of 3 weeks suspension for Samuel. But he remembered making eye contact with Samuel, and realizing it was the first time anyone looked him in the eye in weeks. He remembered the feeling of fists on his battered body, remembered the pain of his arm snapping like a twig.

_ Familiar.  _ It was so familiar, and it made the silence stop. The spring was over, and it was Logan’s fault, wasn’t it? Punishment was due. 

“I tripped.” Logan lied, and he caught Samuel’s face twisting into a smile in front of him. 

It became a regular occurence, and Logan was relieved to have the silence stop, even if it was only for a little while. He’d nurse the injuries himself in his dorm room, and his roommate never asked.

At Samuel’s graduation, Logan approached him, a congratulations on his lips and a heavy goodbye in his mind.

“Sorry. I don’t even know your name.” Samuel responded, and those were the last words he’d ever said to Logan.

Logan had never been good at holding on to people. The end of spring was an expected event. People left, like they always did. Logan knew this.

He  _ knew  _ this. 

And yet…

He lingered behind the wall as he watched Patton give Michael an annotated copy of the Capriccioso.  _ His  _ annotated copy, with detailed notes and careful calculations and occasional jabs at Patton in perfectly penned letters.

_ His  _ copy, a culmination of months of early-mornings and late-nights of practice, of the best music he’d ever made in his life, of his first taste of creation and excitement and exhilaration. Of hours of watching Patton slide his bow smoothly across carefully tuned strings and burning the way his entire body thrummed with music whenever he played into his mind.

On the back of the last page, Logan’s sleep-addled mind had scribbled the constellation Andromeda, pondering over how he could see stars in Patton’s freckles. 

Andromeda. A constellation. A galaxy. An infinity. Patton.

Capriccioso. Circumstance. Temporary. Spring. Logan.

Patton smiled as he offered it to Michael and brightened as Michael took it in hesitant movements. The relief and the joy on Patton’s face knocked the words out of Logan; a single wave of Michael’s hand, and Patton was beaming again.

Michael flipped through the pages quickly to assuage Patton’s waiting stare, and Logan flinched as he absentmindedly crumpled pages, and dog-eared his careful page numbers.

To put so much worth in a single stack of music. Logan had been a fool.

“Patty-cakes,” Michael piped up, and Logan felt a shiver run down his spine.

“Yeah? What’s up?”

“I think there’s a scribble or something on the back of the last page. It’s kinda weird looking.”

Logan froze. 

Patton looked over at the sheet, and his eyes widened.

Logan disappeared before he could let himself decipher what it meant.

…

Fifty-six days.

Patton’s show was on May 14th. The date was March 19th. 

Logan would let himself be lost in Andromeda for just under two more months, and then he’d wipe it from his memory, and let the winter pass over him again.

“Lo’?” Patton asked him, genuine concern draped over all his features. “Are you okay? You seem a bit more down than usual.”

Logan looked back at him and couldn’t find an inch of dishonesty, a single centimeter of over-exaggeration on Patton. Dorothy had been the epitome of spring, and he’d been so desperate for warmth that he took her child’s crayon drawing of it and treasured it, ignoring her ugly creases of lies and bitterness.

Patton was warmth personified. He was chamomile tea on a bad night. He was cinnamon coffee on a good morning. He was music puns, and a wonderful listener, and a genius violinist with perfect pitch and Andromeda sprinkled across his cheeks.

_ Patton _ , Logan thought wistfully,  _ is a pipe-dream. _

Logan studied Patton’s caramel-colored eyes through his dirty lenses, and he was sure he could find another constellation in the speckles of dust if he looked hard enough. Patton was stardust and magic and joy, and Logan loved him, god, how he loved him.

Logan felt his own eyes soften, and he smiled, genuinely, at Patton.

“Yes, Patton. I’m perfect.”

And Logan would be, for fifty-six days more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Patton, Logan thought wistfully, is a pipe-dream."
> 
> *while typing* i'msosorryi'msosorryi'msosorryi'msosorry
> 
> Definition of pipe-dream: an unattainable wish or hope  
*gross sobbing*
> 
> ***I did some very minor editing on the past chapters; not enough to be too noticeable, just so that future plot points would work better.

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this in one sitting and i did not edit. at all
> 
> just a lil idea, but i'll probably take it down and rewrite it so expect that ;)


End file.
